


Ouroboros

by manic_intent



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Post-Canon, That Post-Canon AU where John doesn't kill Santino in the Continental
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 15:14:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19871707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: “Jonathan,” Winston said as John stared down the barrel of the gun at Santino. His aim was true and his finger was on the trigger. John knew exactly how much pressure to apply to get the weapon to fire. He was already braced for the recoil, for the noise, for the stench. Death had been John’s shadow for so long that he’d stopped noticing the weight it bore on his soul.Until Helen. John wavered. For the first time in his long career his aim shook, twisting fractionally to the side. Slouched in his chair, Santino smiled with the venomous pleasure of a man damned past caring. “You’re prepared to die,” John said, ignoring Winston.“Aren’t we all?” Santino stabbed another potato with his fork.





	Ouroboros

**Author's Note:**

  * For [forcus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forcus/gifts).



> Prompt by forcus, who asked for Post-Canon, Santino/John, kidnapping. 
> 
> I’ve done kidnapping before in the Eminent Domain series for this fandom, but I guess at this point picking a trope that I haven’t already written in some way for John Wick is probably going to be tough. Here’s an alternative take on the aftermath of JW2, where John uses slightly more of his brain.

“Jonathan,” Winston said as John stared down the barrel of the gun at Santino. His aim was true and his finger was on the trigger. John knew exactly how much pressure to apply to get the weapon to fire. He was already braced for the recoil, for the noise, for the stench. Death had been John’s shadow for so long that he’d stopped noticing the weight it bore on his soul. 

Until Helen. John wavered. For the first time in his long career, his aim shook, twisting fractionally to the side. Slouched in his chair, Santino smiled with the venomous pleasure of a man damned past caring. “You’re prepared to die,” John said, ignoring Winston.

“Aren’t we all?” Santino stabbed another potato with his fork. 

“I could kill you. Now.” Saying it out aloud did not have the same weight as the grips in his palm, as the scent of cordite over his clothes. Forced into rest, John’s wounds began to ache. 

“An easy kill at this range for anyone,” Santino agreed, gesturing at John’s gun with his fork. Winston tensed but said nothing. No one else in the dining room said a word, all of them rooted in their seats, fascinated by the tableau. It was a bloodless sort of fascination in the three acts poised to come. Santino’s death, John’s destruction, Winston’s disappointment. 

John sucked in a thin breath. “Why?” he asked. “Why aren’t you afraid?” 

“The Baba Yaga asks why his prey is not afraid.” Santino threw back his head and laughed, a laugh as graceful and as handsome as he was, as malicious. “John, John. If I feared Death why would I have made a deal with the Reaper?” 

“You took out a contract on me,” John said. 

“It was within my right to do so. Just as it was within my right to call in my Marker. You killed seventy-seven men over a dog. Why _wouldn’t_ I try to get rid of you after I did what I did to your house?” 

The dog, the house. John had felt a vague sense of something for the former, none for the latter. He’d been drowning since Helen’s death, sinking deeper and deeper into himself. Consequences that he would have once avoided out of common sense felt less and less important. When John said nothing, Santino said, “Do _you_ want to live, John?” He sounded genuinely curious rather than condescending. 

“Yeah,” John said. The answer was hauled from him raw. 

“I thought so. No one who truly wants to die would have gone to the lengths that you did. To return to what you once were, because it was the only way you could survive what is to come. Now the question is,” Santino said, taking a delicate bite from a potato, “do you think you can survive what comes after if you shoot a member of the High Table within the Continental? Do you think your friends will survive? Your dog? The people whose favours you will need to call in to live?” 

“That’s why you think you’re safe,” John grit out. “You think I won’t do it.” 

“I don’t make a habit of assuming that a reaper will not do what they do best.” Santino took another bite, his eyes fixed on John’s. “Rather, I’m willing to go to my death knowing that I’ve destroyed all that I wanted to destroy. My sister. This place. The Arrangement, the High Table. The Bowery King. You. I can see it all play out.” Santino made a graceful gesture beside his head, smiling viciously. “It’ll make for exciting viewing from Hell.” 

He was right. The bastard was right. Santino would die. It would be quick, like this. Santino would die and in death he would be revenged on John, who would have to dodge shadows for the rest of his life, bleeding away the few friends he still had one by one. John would slow down someday, or get careless. Death was more inevitable than it had ever been, and once it was done with John there would be nothing left. He would be forgotten. Helen would be forgotten.

John lowered the gun, breathing hard as he decocked it and tossed it onto Santino’s plate. He took a little pleasure in the way Santino jerked in his chair, in the startled look that wrung his smirk from his face. Winston followed John out of the dining room, radiating relief. “A good choice,” Winston said, “but perhaps not the end of the matter.”

“Why?” All John wanted to do was curl up somewhere and sleep. 

Winston looked surprised that John even asked. “You killed someone on the High Table, John. Granted, there were mitigating circumstances, what with the matter of the marker. But there will still be consequences. There are always consequences.” 

John was too tired to argue, in his defence or in anyone else’s. “Sorry. About the trouble,” John said.

“Not at all.” Winston gave John a black and gold card from within his suit. “I understand that you’re in need of rest and shelter. Our Private Room is available for your use. On the house. I’ll have the Doctor sent up, along with your dog and some food.” 

John was tempted to refuse the card. Collect his dog. Go home and sit in the ruins. It would do nothing for his mood and nothing good for his wounds. Besides, Dog might get hungry again in the meantime. He took the card with a nod of thanks and made his way to the lifts. 

Charon delivered Dog to the Private Room just as John was gingerly stripping off his jacket. “If I may assist,” Charon said from a respectful distance. As John inclined his head, Charon stepped over. He helped John with the suit, with the holsters, while Dog climbed up onto one of the elegant couches and whined. 

“How was he?” John asked, gesturing at Dog. Charon piled John’s gear into neat lines on a table next to the dog food and stainless steel feed bowls he had brought up to the room with Dog. 

“I am pleased to report that he was excellently behaved,” Charon said. He beamed with the genuine pleasure of an actual dog lover, instead of an incidental one like John. “He got along very well with Mads and Chopin. My own rescues.” 

“Right,” John said, even as Charon palmed his phone out of his pockets. Mads turned out to be a shaggy black labrador mix, while Chopin was a tiny hairy brown and white dog that looked like every possible small dog breed haphazardly patched together. Dog featured in a few photos, panting happily while Chopin sat on his shoulders. Playing tug of war with Mads and a chew toy. Rolling in the grass of some park. 

The door buzzing saved John from trying to come up with an appropriately polite response. Charon got to the door, glancing through the security latch. “It’s Doctor Artemis,” he said. 

“Let her in.” 

Charon opened the door and exchanged a word with the woman beyond. He let himself out as Artemis strode in, scowling at John with her doctor’s bag in hand. They were old acquaintances. Although Artemis charged a premium as resident medical in the Continental, John had always preferred her work to the other black-market doctors in the Arrangement. He could trust her, and she was the best. 

“Sit down,” Artemis said as she dropped her bag on the coffee table. “You look like shit. Again.”

“Wouldn’t be talking to you if I didn’t,” John said. He stripped off his shirt under her direction. 

“Heard you nearly shot someone in the Dining Room but changed your mind at the last moment,” Artemis said, as she knelt down to inspect John’s wounds. “Nice to see that time has made you less of a fucking idiot.” 

Artemis was a small woman, her silver hair cut haphazardly over her shoulders, dressed as always in a doctor’s coat. Wrinkles fed over her seamed face to her dour mouth, always drawn tight in disapproval. Rumour had it that a guest had once complained to Winston that Artemis lacked a ‘bedside manner’. When Winston had brought up the matter with Artemis, she’d famously told him—and the guest—to fuck off. There’d been an altercation, during which Artemis had ‘accidentally’ shot the guest in his thigh. She’d tended to him on the spot, without anaesthetic. No complaints had been raised since. 

John winced as Artemis pointedly prodded one of his bruises. “Yeah,” he said. 

“I’m actually impressed that you came that close. I thought Winston would tackle you for your own good.” 

“He probably thought about it.”

Artemis sniffed. “That man. I’ve told him time and again. If he wants to feel paternal about something, he should get married. Adopt a child. Or a dog, or a cat. A parrot, even. You’re not worth it.” She viciously swabbed John’s wounds clean. 

“I know.” John took the treatment without complaint. Artemis fell silent as she stitched, until everything was cleaned back up. 

As she left a bottle of pills on the table, Artemis said, “He was proud of you. As was I.”

John blinked. “Really?” He’d never sensed anything of the sort from the doctor.

“I’ve known you all your life. You, and people like you. You were born into the Arrangement, thanks to the Director. It was all you knew. It’s easy to want nothing more, especially when you got as successful as you were. For wanting to change? I respect that.” Artemis gently patted John on the arm. 

“It didn’t last,” John said. 

“Didn’t it?” Artemis drew away and started to pack her gear back into her bag. “It’s up to you, Jonathan. Whether you want to stay changed. Or go back to what you were before. A killer and nothing more.” 

In the silence of the luxurious room, John sat with Dog on the couch. He petted Dog carefully as it swiped John eagerly with its tail, looking up at John with adoring eyes. It would not have occurred to John to take a picture of Dog, even if he’d still had his phone. Until Helen, John had never owned a smartphone, anything more than the basics. It was a security risk he couldn’t afford, a deprivation that he’d grown used to. Helen had found it hilarious. She’d bought him his current phone, taught him how to use it. The device had taken some getting used to. Not that it mattered now. The phone had burned away with the house, with every record of the woman he had loved.

#

The Adjudicator sent to the Continental was someone John knew. The room he was taken to under the Continental was a kaleidoscope of glass and steel, with displays that John didn’t inspect closely, with a wall-sized screen that he ignored. Mary was sitting on the desk in a sprawling office, legs crossed, hands in her lap. She smiled as Winston and John approached, her lips bright red against her brown face. There was no warmth in her smile. No change there.

“John,” said Mary as John drew to a halt at a respectful distance. 

“Mary.” The last they’d met, Mary had been working as a hatchet for a small outfit based in Harlem. When she’d run into John they’d both been younger. Different. John had aged into what he was now, bruised and scarred and folded into rumpled clothes. Mary was perfectly dressed, her dark hair straightened over her charcoal coat, hands folded into dove grey gloves. 

“The Manager here took the liberty of filing an appeal on your behalf,” Mary said. 

“Didn’t ask him to.” 

“No. I didn’t think you would. The High Table understands that you were put in a difficult position. A rule change will be made to the Marker system. It will be applied retrospectively.”

John nodded slowly, even as Winston frowned. “Madam, that is hardly fair,” Winston said. 

“It is not a matter of fairness. It is a matter of example. No one can kill anyone on the High Table without suffering the consequences. That being said, given the circumstances, we are prepared to be lenient in John’s case,” Mary said. She took a folded sheaf of papers out of her coat. “The High Table proposes that you work off the debt for ten years as its enforcer.” 

“Ten years…? Madam, surely you jest,” Winston said, incredulous. “Jonathan here is no longer young.” 

“It’s out of my hands. The High Table does not jest. As to the matter of age, Mister Wick has shown that he is, despite his years, more than capable of destroying the New York bratva in the space of a few days without suffering any major injuries.” Winston started to voice another protest and paused as Mary held up a hand. “I’d like to have a word with you, John. Without your minder.” 

“Sorry,” John told Winston. Winston tightened his jaw, but nodded stiffly at them both and left. 

Mary stayed pointedly silent until they were clearly the only people left in the glass chamber. “He’s probably listening in. Nosy old man.” 

“He isn’t so bad.” 

“Says the favourite. Siddown. You’re giving me a cramp in my neck, fuck.” Mary patted the table beside her. John sat gingerly, grimacing as it pulled at his wounds. “You all right?”

“No major injuries, huh?” 

“You still got all your arms and legs. You’d live.” Mary smacked John on the arm with the papers. “What the hell, John.”

“What?” 

“The bratva I kinda get. If anyone killed my cats, I’d rain fiery hell down on them too. I wouldn’t have stopped at the brother. But Gianna D’Antonio? Jesus.” 

“Santino had the marker.”

“You could’ve called me. I would’ve rung it up.” 

“Favour was a favour,” John said. He’d understood that once he’d walked off his malaise, once he’d gotten over the black temper that had burned in his blood until the museum. He did owe Santino for the best years of his life. Santino had risked his neck for John a long time ago when no one else would, when John had been desperate for help. Betraying his uncle’s location could’ve gotten him killed. Without it, John would never have completed the Impossible Task. Never have married Helen.

“Good thing you didn’t shoot him dead. They would’ve set the Ice Queen on you if you had. She’s been raring to get her teeth into something big for years. She wouldn’t just have gotten you killed. She’d have burned New York down to get to you.”

“Thanks?” John said. He gave Mary’s coat and gloves a pointed once-over. As far as John was concerned, he’d only traded one Adjudicator for another. “I’m tired, Mary.” 

“I get that. I would be too, in your shoes. But d’you wanna get excommunicated? Huh?” Mary smacked him again, more gently this time. “Favour was a favour, sure. So are consequences.” 

“What happens after ten years? Do I get out? Or do I become like you? Doing one favour after another for the High Table, always paying back more and more interest?” 

Mary stiffened. “I don’t regret any of the choices I made.” 

“Nor do I.” 

“I paid for mine.” Mary set the papers down on the table. “You got a week’s grace to think about it. That’s all the leeway that I could get you.” She offered John a wry smile. “You want to call it quits before then, disappear somewhere that the Arrangement don’t reach? I don’t know nothing, didn’t hear nothing.” 

“Thanks,” John said softly. 

“Long time ago you could’ve killed me and you didn’t. Let’s say we’re even.” Mary got up, smoothing down her skirt. “Stay well, John.” 

“What’re you gonna do about Santino?” John asked. He made no move to pick up the papers. 

“He used you to get rid of his sister, I understand that. On the other hand, he’s now High Table himself, which makes things… complicated. That’s all I’m gonna say about Santino, and you’d do well to stay out of it.”

#

“John,” Santino said. He sat at John’s table in the corner of the Indigo Room before John could say a word, flicking his gaze over the dimly-lit bar in the Continental. John preferred to eat here instead of in the Dining Room. It was quieter. He stared at Santino instead of answering, quietly tucking into his pasta.

Santino let out a deep sigh, as though John was being recalcitrant instead of being just days removed from the shitstorm that Santino had brought into his life. “I presume you met the lovely Miss Mary,” Santino said, slouching into his seat. 

John inclined his head. He shot Santino an annoyed glance as Santino motioned for the barkeeper to come over, ordering a glass of wine. As it was poured, Santino smiled. The scrapes on his face were healing, but as before, they did little to detract from the elegant lines of his face. “She offered you a deal,” Santino said. 

“Yeah. Ten years. Enforcer for the High Table.” 

Santino chuckled, sipping his wine. “Do you think that’s fair?” 

John stared at him, incredulous. “You’re gonna talk to me about _fair_?” 

“Why not? We both know what I did for you. Did you think I risked my skin for free? Please. You’re a very interesting man, John. I still like you, despite everything. But nothing is free. Nothing is forgotten. You. _Owed_. Me.” 

“You tried to have me killed. Said it was because I killed your sister.” John had thought over the last few days as he’d been recovering. 

“In part, yes. In part, everything else. Do you really want to keep rehashing old history? I asked you a question.” 

“It’s fair,” John said tiredly. It was a more lenient outcome than he’d expected. Usually, the High Table also expected blood. A finger, a toe. An eye. He could run, as Mary had suggested, but John knew he’d be running forever. 

“Hmm.” Santino swirled the wine in his glass, looking at it. “I suppose you would think so.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Do you think they’ll really let you go? Even if you survive your penance?” 

John set his fork down. “Just say what you want.” 

“I make it my business to know things. That’s why you came to me so many years ago. A name, a location. You killed three men in a night and emerged unscathed. I have a proposition for you.”

“No,” John said. He’d had enough of Santino and his bullshit. 

Unfazed, Santino took another sip of his glass. “Twelve seats. Eleven names, eleven locations.” 

John blinked. “You want to get rid of the _High Table_?” he whispered. 

“Why not? It isn’t impossible. Especially with a killer of your calibre.” 

“And then what. You rule it all?”

“No. We leave it broken. No High Table. No fiefdom with us peons strung along to their will. No maimings for mistakes, no more indentured labour. The Arrangement can be like the System instead of Cosa Nostra. Not a pyramid, but a shoal.” 

“Chaos,” John said. “And you’re one to talk about indentured labour.” It was no secret that the Camorra exploited people in its farms, in its factories, a predatory system that fed on the most vulnerable people in Italy and ground them to the bone for profit. 

“If you say so. The System has survived perfectly well in Naples for centuries because it is decentralised. It began to weaken only when the High Table offered my family a seat. It did not make us stronger. It sparked off a civil war, one which my family took a decade to suppress.”

“What about the Elder?” 

“What about him? He can sit in the desert and dream about whatever he wants. Oh yes,” Santino said, smiling as John tensed. “I know where he is too.” He drained his glass, setting it aside and getting to his feet. “Eleven people and you will be more than a legend. You’d become akin to a God. No one will dare to call on you again.” 

“I don’t care about that,” John said. It was harder to say than he’d liked.

Santino’s smile widened. There was fervour in his beautiful eyes, something fanatical, something malevolent. “I serve,” he said with heavy mockery, speaking the words of fealty to the High Table. “I will be of service. Is that what you want, reaper?” Santino circled around to John’s side, bending to brush his lips intimately against John’s ear. “Somehow, I don’t think so.”

#

Dog shot off the bed at the staccato knock on the door, speeding through the Private Room with an excited whuff. John twisted in bed, wincing as he pulled his stitches. The ornate clock on the side table told him that it was four in the morning. Rubbing his eyes, John crawled out of bed and limped over to the door.

It was Winston. The Manager of the Continental looked impeccable despite the late hour, and he was unapologetic. “May I come in?”

“Sure?” John made way. Winston stepped in and closed the door, bending to tickle Dog behind the ears. “S’matter?” John asked, yawning. 

“Santino disappeared from his room.” 

“Okay?” John wasn’t sure how this was his problem. 

“CCTV was erased through the route that the kidnappers took. There were signs of a struggle in Santino’s room.” Winston tucked his hands behind his back, clicking his tongue. “Worrying and upsetting.”

“Okay,” John said, still unsure. 

Winston raised his eyebrows. “Someone—or some _ones_ —broke into the Continental. Hacked our systems. Made off with a guest. I’m rather concerned.” 

“You got security.” Continental security was very good, by all accounts.

“Ortiz was found dead a block down the street. Ella, in a corner of Central Park. The rest are still missing.”

“You think I did it?” John said, bewildered. 

“No. You’ve clearly been here all this while. The feeds from the corridor outside the Private Room haven’t been tampered with. And it wouldn’t make sense for you.” Winston walked over to the windows, twitching the heavy drapes briefly aside. “I’m concerned that the High Table decided to take matters into their own hands.” 

“Serve him right, don’t it?” 

Winston frowned at John. “If they’re willing to break cardinal rules to get what they want, what is the point of rules? Of the Arrangement? This can’t be borne, Jonathan.” 

John ran his hand slowly through his hair. “Can’t see what this has to do with me.”

“I know what Santino offered you. Eleven names, eleven locations, wasn’t it? It’s a good offer. Even if you just kill a handful of them, it’d be a show of strength that they’d have to respect. Better than ten years of penance for something you had no choice in.”

“Choice,” John repeated bitterly. “I had a choice. The things that happened were because of the choices I made. To break the ground under my house. Become what I was. Someone who…” He trailed off wearily. The man he was now, the man he had been before he met Helen—the _killer_ —was not someone Helen had been willing to love. Yet here he was. Without her John had been lost, and because he was lost he had sunk back into old habits. 

“You have a choice again now,” Winston said gently. “I’ve seen what the High Table does to people they think they own. It’s never good.” He placed a scrap of paper on the desk. “Ortiz had this in his pockets. It’s up to you.”

#

Ortiz’s clue led John to the rest of the Continental security team, or what was left of them. Mary had always been highly efficient. They played tag in a sprawling warehouse in the New York Harbour, trading shots until John finally caught and pinned her between shipping containers, at which point Mary came very close to knifing him in the gut. He’d gotten lucky. Neither of them were at 100%—Mary had been shot in the leg by security. She laughed as he kicked her knife away and stepped back.

“Should’ve taken the offer, John,” Mary said, leaning against the container. He’d had to fracture her other leg in the fight.

“Sorry,” John said, meaning both the leg and the offer.

Mary waved dismissively. “I knew you weren’t gonna say yes. Told the High Table as much. Y’know how Upper Management likes to get.” 

John nodded. The Tarasovs had sometimes been difficult, but they weren’t as bad as the family Mary had worked for. The Tarasovs expected John’s time and obedience and only that. Mary’s former employers had wanted everything. “You gonna be OK?” he asked. 

“I’ve been better,” Mary said. She smiled. These were the same words they’d traded long ago in an alley, when they’d run afoul of each other on a similar job. Wasn’t long after that when Mary had decided she’d had enough of being beholden to anyone. That hadn’t worked out well for her overall. 

“Okay.” John lowered his gun, backing away. “Was good to see you again.” 

“John,” Mary called out before he ducked out of sight. “The package. It’s aboard the _Endless Summer_. A yacht. It’s at the dock. Not far from here.” 

“Thanks,” John said, breaking into a jog.

#

Santino came to when they were a couple of hours out at sea, and made this known by swearing loudly in Italian. John paused, checked the autopilot from the deck, and kept hosing the last of the blood off into the sea. Eventually Santino emerged, looking wary and holding a knife that he must have found in the galley. He stared at John with open surprise. “You.”

“Wasn’t the one who kidnapped you,” John said, in case Santino got the wrong idea.

“Obviously. I was conscious during the first part of that ordeal.” Santino lowered the knife. “What the fuck?” 

“High Table wanted to get rid of you.” 

“That part was goddamned obvious. What are you doing here? Why did you come after me?” 

John scratched his jaw, frowning at the sea. “Not really sure,” he admitted. He hadn’t particularly cared what happened to Santino. Or about the Arrangement, or about Winston and his love of the rules. The impetus for coming after Santino had not been something John could explain. It hadn’t felt like the ‘right’ thing to do—nothing that John had done over the last few days had been remotely moral. He knew that. It had, however, felt like the right thing to do for _himself_. Somehow.

“All right,” Santino said. He walked past John, heading up to check the helm. John went below decks. The yacht was small but well-appointed, fully stocked for at least four people. John had a shower, changed his clothes into a fairly well-fitting set he found in one of the cabins and was trying to re-dress his wound when Santino reappeared. 

Santino made a clucking sound. “Move over, my God.” John shifted on the bunk and Santino took over. He was surprisingly neat about it. “I once studied to be a doctor,” Santino said before John could ask.

“Really?” 

“My father wanted my sister and I to study an MBA. Or law. I refused. It was an early act of defiance. Ultimately pointless. I understood quickly that I could not so easily escape the life I was born to. Worse, despite everything I did to make up for it in the years after, my father never forgave it.” 

“Naming your sister to his seat.”

Santino inclined his head, his jaw set as got up to wash his hands in the ensuite bathroom. As the tap turned on, he said, “Despite that, he still expected me to stay in the family business. To serve the Arrangement until I died.” 

“No way out, or so it seemed.” John had felt that way once.

The tap turned off. Santino came out of the bathroom, settling back down on the bunk beside John. He stretched out on it, lying on the sheets with his legs dangling over the deck. “That’s why I helped you when you asked. I could respect your attempt to leave the Arrangement. To try and live happily ever after.” Santino’s lips twisted into an ironic curl. “Had you never returned, I wouldn’t have troubled you again. Despite having your Marker.” 

John nodded slowly. “Don’t blame you for forcing the issue. Rules were rules. Blowing up the house though. Bit fucking much.”

“What would it have looked like to everyone else, had I just run away from the holder of my Marker with my tail between my legs? No. A show of force had to be made. And I needed the man that would have emerged from the flames.” Santino stroked his fingers playfully up over John’s knee. “The reaper.” 

“Could understand that,” John said. Much as he wished he didn’t. 

“The way you are now, though—you’re actually more interesting.” Santino’s fingers started to trace circles up the inseam of John’s pants. “Not the reaper. Not the tired old man I met in an empty house. Something more.” 

John didn’t feel any different. “Did you mean it? About burning it all down.” 

“I always mean what I say. I’ll promise you that much. I’ve never lied to you. Never cheated you. This will be the same.” 

“Tried to kill me though.” 

“And it was mutual, so I think we’re fairly even, all things considered.” Santino scowled. “But by all means, harp on about it.” 

John stopped Santino’s exploring hand by clapping his palm on it, though he didn’t push Santino away. “You realize we’d probably die trying. Doing what you want to do.” 

“I think the High Table will soon find that the System isn’t as obedient as they would like. Or other members of the Arrangement. They think they can rule over a pack of wolves and vultures with fear.” Santino let out a low, barking laugh. “That will be their mistake.” 

“What are you? A wolf? A vulture?” 

“Some would call me an ouroboros,” Santino said, his humour fading. “An agent of chaos, eating his own world.” He squeezed John’s thigh invitingly. John let go. Santino hummed deep in his throat, caressing the muscle of John’s leg appreciatively, first over the inner thigh, then up to his hip. When he brushed his knuckles against the growing bulge in John’s pants, John hissed. 

“Kiss me,” Santino demanded. Despite the pain from his injuries, old and new, despite his misgivings, John bent. Santino bit as he kissed, groaning between them as he scratched his nails over John’s throat, hungry, always hungry.

#

They began with Italy. ‘Ndrangheta, Cosa Nostra. Santino had connections in the carabinieri, which helped run interference for John as he prowled through Calabria, through Sicily. With the two seats newly made vacant, John caught up with Santino in Naples, where he’d been busy ‘cleaning house’. As workmen hosed away the blood on the steps of the villa, John sidestepped the mess into the foyer, where Santino was wiping down his hands with a hand towel, a bloodied knife discarded on the floor. Ares inclined her head as she recognised John. Dog trotted over, wagging its tail happily.

-You look well,- John signed at her as he bent to give Dog a pat. He’d left her bleeding out in a mirror maze, stabbed through the chest. Miraculous recovery. She smiled but didn’t bother replying. 

“She said she was growing bored in hospital,” Santino said. He tossed the towel onto the knife, ignoring the staff that scurried over to pick up after him. “How was Sicily?”

“You didn’t hear?” John hadn’t exactly been subtle in Sicily. Cosa Nostra had put up quite a fight, even with the carabinieri influence. He had a new limp, new bandages.

Santino shook his head. He gestured for John to follow him as he ascended the stairs. Ares watched them go but stayed where she was as they headed toward Santino’s chambers with Dog at her feet. “I heard what happened. I was asking you for an opinion,” Santino said.

“Was fine. Two down.”

“Nine to go. You’ve made a stir,” Santino said as they walked into his chambers and closed the doors behind them.

John straightened up as Santino stalked over, making a show of straightening John’s bloodied collar. “What happened in the foyer?” John asked.

“A handful of rude individuals, now dispatched.” Santino signalled his disinterest in being questioned by leaning in for a kiss. John pulled him close, ignoring his own wounds. They kissed until Santino grew impatient, until he began to bite. With John’s blood staining his lips, Santino curled his hands into a fist in John’s tie and pulled him to bed. 

Santino was already slick, already stretched. John tilted his head as he got two fingers into him and Santino laughed, grinding down shamelessly to the knuckles. “I heard you were coming home,” he said, spreading his thighs. “Hurry up. I have a meeting tonight with some of the clans.” 

“You’d go to that limping,” John growled, his cock pressing eagerly against the tightening fabric of his pants. 

Santino smirked. “I hope so, or I’ll have gone to all this trouble for nothing. Now. Fuck me.” 

John obeyed. He climbed onto the bed, trying to ignore the flare of pain up his leg as he unzipped himself and drew out his cock, rolling on a condom. His erection was already starting to flag—the painkillers were starting to wear off—and Santino made an impatient, indignant noise. He wriggled free and pushed John down onto his back, shifting down to take John’s cock into his mouth, sucking it deep down his tight, clenching throat. 

That worked. John shivered and jerked, shoving into the wet heat as his cock plumped back up under the attention. He liked watching Santino giving head, liked stroking his fingers through that ridiculous mop of curly hair, watch those brilliant eyes squeeze closed in concentration as Santino kissed the root of John’s cock and sucked. Liked to hold Santino down and fuck into him, though that never lasted long. Santino would jerk up after a couple of thrusts, coughing and sputtering. He glared at John now, spitting out a curse as he angled up to straddle John’s hips, cursing out his ancestry in hoarse Italian that broke into dialect as Santino lined John up and sat on his cock. 

John concentrated on breathing, on holding on. The last time he’d come before Santino had finished, Santino had literally kicked him out of the bed, furious. This was nothing like the affairs John had before Helen. Nothing like Helen. The man he was now was no longer looking for comfort, no longer looking for love. What Santino offered John was intimacy without the lies, acceptance without the shame. John moaned as Santino started to move, bracing himself against the bed and fucking himself on John’s cock, using John for his pleasure. 

Santino grinned as he moved, his dark curls drifting over his wide green eyes, sweat slicking a slow line down to the hollow of his throat. John sat up with a wince and licked after it, pressed the salt of Santino’s skin over his tongue. Each wet smack of their bodies grinding together was loud in the room but the hoarse gasps torn from John’s throat were louder. Louder yet. If he could stay buried in the delicious heat of Santino’s body for longer he would. They never did have the time. Wasn’t long before Santino was grinding down with a moan, clawing new marks over the ink on John’s back, his cock drawing a thick line of fluid over John’s belly. John buried his mouth against Santino’s throat, hips twitching into his own release as he breathed in Santino’s scent and sucked reddened marks over his throat. 

“John,” Santino said into his ear, a lazy, laughing caress. “John.” He didn’t get off John’s lap as he kissed John’s cheek, a mocking play on a lover’s caress. John pinched Santino’s ass in response and got an indignant yelp, but Santino started to draw back, hesitating when John caught his hips. 

“Someone will probably try to kill you during the clan meeting,” John predicted.

“I’ll be disappointed if they didn’t.” 

“Guessing it’ll be harder after this,” John said. The remaining members of the High Table would bunker down. Grow ever cautious. 

Santino bared his teeth. “Had enough?” 

“No,” John said. He felt good. It was the first time in his life that he’d ever felt good about the destruction he could wreak. He didn’t enjoy meting it. It was something else. 

Santino knew. His smile was sly as he looked John over. “It’s something you can get used to. Doing what you do for yourself. Not for the Tarasovs, or for me, or for your late wife. Feels freeing, doesn’t it?” 

It did. John wished it didn’t but it did. He pulled Santino into a kiss instead of answering, but Santino bit down on John’s lip, sucking the mauled flesh into his mouth. This alliance between them might not last. John would be surprised if it did. The ouroboros’ hunger gave no quarter to its friends or its lovers. It had already turned on John once before. Yet as Santino chuckled against him and whispered his name, John closed his eyes to the serpent and its teeth.

**Author's Note:**

> Refs:  
> Doctor Artemis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqfuKsoEEms  
> Adjudicator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ1Zcv54USA
> 
> twitter: @manic_intent  
> about my writing etc: manic-intent.tumblr.com  
> 


End file.
